Singtel's new Moon must turn the tide

Singapore’s largest telco has appointed its consumer business head Yuen Kuan Moon as its new CEO. With its stock price at a 12-year low and a haphazard digital services strategy, Moon has his work cut out

Singtel has over 700M mobile subscribers across its core Singapore business, a subsidiary in Australia, and associates in India, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines

In Singapore, Singtel has captured over 50% of the market share, but Covid-19 and a potentially expensive 5G rollout has left the telco bleeding

With a background rooted in running the consumer business, Moon could unlock Singtel’s most disappointing asset, its Australia unit

With the 5G rollout and the possibility of operating a digital bank in Singapore, Moon might just have all he needs to galvanise Singtel

As Singapore enters the 5G era, the next-generation mobile technology isn’t the only change its major telcos are dealing with. All three—Singtel, StarHub, and M1—will have a new chief executive leading the way.

While M1 appointed a new chief executive in December 2018, StarHub is on the hunt, with current CEO Peter Kaliaropoulos retiring on 31 October for personal reasons. But the man stepping into arguably the hottest CEO seat in Singapore’s telco space is Yuen Kuan Moon.

Earlier in October, Yuen, or Moon, as he prefers to be called, was appointed CEO-designate of Singtel. He will replace Chua Sock Koong on 1 Jan 2021, who stepped down after a 13-year run, which saw Singtel capture over 50% of the market.

AUTHOR

Benjamin Cher

Based in Singapore, Ben covers news and stories from the hub of Southeast Asia. He covers the intersection of technology and business, and how it affects Singapore and Southeast Asia. Ben was previously a reporter at The Edge Singapore.

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